TotalEnergies and Plastic Omnium to Develop Recycled Materials for the Automotive Industry

TotalEnergies and French automotive supplier Plastic Omnium have signed a strategic partnership to design and develop new plastic materials, made from recycled polypropylene, for the automotive industry.

TotalEnergies and Plastic Omnium will pool their engineering skills to design new types of recycled materials that offer enhanced performance while providing deliverable responses to the challenges raised by end-of-life plastics. These new materials will contain anywhere from 20% up to 100% recycled materials and are sourced from industrial and domestic waste streams. They also will have a CO2 impact as much as six times lower than using virgin materials.

The use of plastics in automotive bodywork plays a key role in cutting the automotive industry’s carbon emissions. They make it easier to improve aerodynamic performance and reduce the overall weight of vehicles, helping in turn to cut the amount of fuel used by internal combustion vehicles and increase the autonomy of electric vehicles.

“This partnership with Plastic Omnium is a great example of collaboration and innovation to develop ever-higher and environmentally friendly recycled plastic materials that help our OEM and vehicle manufacturer customers to reduce their carbon footprints,” said Valérie Goff, senior vice president, polymers at TotalEnergies. “This project will also contribute to addressing the challenge of the circular economy and to our ambition of producing 30% recycled and renewable polymers by 2030.”

“Recycling plastic materials is a challenge to us as manufacturers, and a vital issue for our planet,” said Stéphane Noël, president and CEO of Plastic Omnium Intelligent Exterior Systems. “This exciting partnership paves the way to providing responses that are better integrated and more environmentally friendly, reflecting our customers’ and suppliers’ carbon neutrality goals. This is absolutely central to a strategic partnership that seeks to support the far-reaching transformation the industry is currently undergoing.”